Protect the availability, integrity, and confidentiality of your network systemAs plants become better connected and more thoroughly integrated, cyber security issues take center stage.Top industry suppliers and the Department of Homeland Security share the latest ideas for protecting your industrial network system including:•Evaluating your current systems' security•How to design the first layer of network defense•Tips and traps from creating a security program to minimizing system vulnerabilities

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Tutorial: Conductivity sensors

There are three liquid characteristics that are often thought of together, although they are different and use different sensor technology. Conductivity, ORP, and pH all have to do with specific chemical characteristics, but measuring each in a process stream requires its own approach. Conductivity is simply the ability of a liquid to conduct electricity, which is related directly to the concentration of ions in the liquid. While pH is concerned specifically with hydrogen ions, conductivity does not differentiate.Read more

Industry news: User group presses for device language unity

NAMUR (Normenarbeitsgemeinschaft für Mess- Und Regeltechnik in der Chemischen Industrie, loosely translated, the standards working group for chemical industry measuring and control techniques) is pushing along the work of a committee trying to hammer out a common platform to bring together the two major device descriptor language platforms: EDDL and FDT. The organization feels that neither is wholly adequate on its own, but putting the two together has potential to create a best-of-both-worlds solution.Read more

Wireless: New equipment health monitoring platform

Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS) has raised the ante for wireless instrumentation platforms by introducing its OneWireless Equipment Health Monitoring (EHM) system. HPS is offering this in conjunction with SKF, using a combination of hardware and software from both companies. This system is aimed at applications where equipment is not super-critical, since those installations usually already have monitoring. EHM installations will typically be those that are the next level down, where traditional monitoring systems have been considered too expensive to be cost effective.Read more

Temperature sensors: Have it your way—RTDs, thermocouples built to order

If you’re an OEM or a volume user of temperature sensors and you can’t always find what you need from suppliers’ standard offerings, Thermalogic says it can make RTD, thermistor, thermocouple, and semiconductor sensor assemblies to order, to satisfy your unique applications.Read more

Temperature transmitter: Fieldbus networking simplifies wiring

The TFZ programmable Foundation Fieldbus temperature transmitter from Moore Industries takes the analog signal from a temperature sensor and digitizes it to send the variable to the larger DCS via the H1 segment. The company says the transmitter can interface with 14 RTD types, and nine thermocouple types, as well as direct millivolt and resistance/potentiometer inputs.Read more

Ozone sensor: Monitor water in critical processes

With the growing use of water sanitizing processes using ozone treatment, Mettler Toledo Thornton has released a new dissolved ozone sensor family for monitoring water for pharmaceutical and semiconductor applications. The new sensors interface with the Thornton M300 transmitter platform that includes conductivity/resistivity, dissolved oxygen, flowrate, pH, ORP and temperature measurements.Read more

Annual Salary Survey

Before the calendar turned, 2016 already had the makings of a pivotal year for manufacturing, and for the world.

There were the big events for the year, including the United States as Partner Country at Hannover Messe in April and the 2016 International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago in September. There's also the matter of the U.S. presidential elections in November, which promise to shape policy in manufacturing for years to come.

But the year started with global economic turmoil, as a slowdown in Chinese manufacturing triggered a worldwide stock hiccup that sent values plummeting. The continued plunge in world oil prices has resulted in a slowdown in exploration and, by extension, the manufacture of exploration equipment.